Yellowjackets, According to Someone Who Has Not Watched Yellowjackets
There sure is a lot I didn't know about lesbian cannibals!
It’s the last week to take advantage of the 20% discount on a new annual subscription to my newsletter! We’re coming up on the two-year anniversary of my decision to turn on paid newsletter subscriptions, something that changed my whole life! They say I’ll see a whole lot of cancellations on year two, so I’m hoping to offset that. A handful more annual subscriptions would be a real huge success for me. Would you consider getting one? :)
🚨 HEAD’S UP: SPOILERS BELOW!🚨
My wife has recently started watching Yellowjackets in earnest. She watched the first season years ago, and was honestly pretty apathetic about it, but something about the current political climate has her looking for a different kind of darkness to wander around in. Last weekend, our friend
came over and they talked about the show for a long time while I listened on in absolute horror. And so I have decided to recap what I know about Yellowjackets based only on what I've heard from Stacy and Valerie Anne, and what I've seen through my hands on the TV when I'm sitting on the couch beside Stacy, her wearing headphones and occasionally screaming, "WHAT THE FUCK SHAUNA!!!!" while I read my little novels about orc princesses and elf princesses falling in love.A girls high school soccer team (mascot: Yellowjackets) is on their way to Nationals when their plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. Many of the straight girls are very upset about this, while many of the gay girls are more open to the possibilities it presents.
The year is 1996, which is not exactly an easy time to be a queer teen. Buffy the Vampire Slayer has not yet premiered on the WB. AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) has not yet been invented, so there's not even the hope of connecting with another gay youth in Australia by leaving Fiona Apple lyrics as your away message (and my big secret / gonna win you over / slow like honey / heavy with mood). Rural Blockbuster video stores do not carry Personal Best on VHS. But I'm a Cheerleader has not been filmed. The only person you can tell your gay secrets to is your Tamagotchi, and then they always fly off into space leaving you alone with all your enormous and confusing feelings about The Craft.
Is the Canadian wilderness really more bleak than that?
Yellowjackets happens on two timelines: the teen one in the northern wilds and the adult one in New Jersey, where the Yellowjackets — like the WNBA's most beloved crashout, Marina Mabrey — originated.
The Characters
Shauna Shipman — As a teen, Shauna does the gayest thing you can do, which is falling in love with her ice queen best friend, Jackie. As an adult, she marries a man she hates, because she hates everyone who is not Jackie, which is a real problem for her because she killed and ate Jackie. One time Jackie's ghost comes to the grocery store where Shauna works and buys some steaks and a severed hand.
Taissa Turner — As a teen, Tai is so competitive that she mangles her teammates who are not good enough, so they won't hold the Yellowjackets back. When the plane crashes, she stays mad knowing they could have won Nationals, and now all their muscles are wasting away! She is dating Van. As an adult, she has a dog named Biscuit. (DO NOT TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT BISCUIT.) She sleepwalks into trouble at all ages.
Van (no last name, like Beyonce) — Van is everyone's favorite tomboy. The teen Yellowjackets, the adult Yellowjackets, all my friends in real life, my wife, and especially Tai. Everyone loves Van. She's got cherished Uncle energy, and she gets so upset about missing out on all the gay pop culture from the late 90s, she opens a video store when the team gets rescued. Van survives a wolf attack and has the most badass scars from it.
Misty "Medical Malpractice" Quigley — Misty Quigley is like all the characters Christina Ricci has ever played, combined: feral and glad about it. As a teen, she crawls out of the wreckage of the plane crash and starts chopping off people's limbs with an axe she had in her luggage, like a Civil War doctor. Then she goes about systematically sabotaging any attempts at rescue, less for gay reasons, and more for just general chaos reasons. As an adult, she wears scrubs all the time. I don't know if this is because she is an actual doctor or nurse or because she wants to look less suspicious when she pulls a bonesaw out of her purse.
Coach Ben — Coach Ben is gay in the 90s horror way that causes him to get mutilated immediately. He's the first one who gets hacked up by Dr. Misty.
Nat — Beloved. Straight, but exchanges charged looks with Lottie.
Lottie — Supposedly straight, but Lottie can speak to and for the trees, which is very gay. (See also: aforementioned charged looks.)
Melissa Hat — Melissa is a member of the JV soccer team. She idolizes Van for being the coolest and the gayest and falls in love with Shauna because she's a baby gay who never had the chance to meet Jenny Schecter. She follows Shauna around like a creep and makes her handmade gifts and says stuff to Shauna like "I'm not afraid of you" even though she is, rightfully, terrified of her. She looted her hat off the dead body of her enemy after the crash. She wears it facing forward when she's feeling aggressive and wears it backwards when she's feeling normal. This is true in both the teen and adult timelines.
Other characters — There are some, but I never heard about them. Probably due to their heterosexuality.
The Teen Timeline
Pretty much as soon as the Yellowjackets crash, they start a cult. Actually, maybe they last until winter and then they start a cult. Or maybe there's two cults? Unclear. I'm also not exactly sure about the theology of the cult(s), but essentially it's whatever Lottie says the wilderness wants, which is A LOT of bloodshed. You know that short story you have to read in ninth grade called The Most Dangerous Game? It seems like Lottie was inspired by that. The Yellowjackets kick off their cannibalism by eating Jackie — Shauna first, with an ear tartare — and they don't even have to kill her themselves. She falls asleep in a snit in a blizzard and freezes to death.
Lottie thinks that's way too easy, and in no way satisfies the wilderness' bloodlust, so asks them to put on costumes and stand around in the dark, illuminated by nothing but torchlight, because she knows it'll creep 'em out so bad. And of course they do it because it's a bunch of burgeoning homosexuals. Like they're gonna say no to putting on a costume and dancing around. Once they've honk-bonked themselves into an exhausted and emaciated frenzy, Lottie's like, "And now we're gonna hunt each other like wild game!" And they do that too, because, well, they're teenagers. That's what teenagers do, plane crash or not. Stab or be stabbed.
Some of the Yellowjackets think maybe Lottie should not be in charge. Some of them don't want to murder their teammates and gnaw on their bones. Some of them — okay, fine, one of them: Misty — doesn't care who's in charge; she's gonna be gnawing bones either way.
They build a nice little village for themselves, when they're not stalking and shooting each other. They all do their little chores, and joke their little mean teenage jokes, and make out with each other and stuff. They're hungry, but it's not the worst. Like, human toes probably do taste better than the hot dogs they sell at Met Life stadium, which is the only place I've ever eaten in New Jersey. Everybody's got their hobbies. Van and Tai are in love, for example. Shauna does a lot of journaling. Some of them pick up archery. Some of them learn to thatch roofs. Melissa Hat tries different ways of wearing her hats, and hides in the bushes to creep a peep at Shauna whenever she has an opportunity. Misty's working on her skull collection. I think one of them has a pet mouse. (DO NOT TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT THAT MOUSE.)
Some scientists show up at one point because they smell "barbecue" but Lottie chops them up into pieces before Misty can even gather her poisons. And that is another rescue attempt sabotaged.
Melissa Hat and Shauna do hook up, and Melissa Hat tries to give Van and Tai a dorky dyke thumbs up about it, but Van's just like, "Sure, okay, GOOD LUCK GUY!" Based on my occasional glances at the TV, there are also talent shows and dances. Not a terrible way to pass idle hours, waiting for night to fall and your friends to begin stalking you like a shiver of sharks.
The Adult Timeline
You would think the Yellowjackets would stop killing each other once they get home, but that is incorrect. In fact, they kill each other EVEN MORE. Also, Shauna brings her journal home with her, and keeps it in, like, her nightstand drawer, and her stupid husband goes full Gossip Girl with it. Oh, sorry, yeah, Shauna marries a man who owns the New Jersey Furniture Emporium when she gets home. Self-inflicted straight prison for gay crimes. Shauna and Mr. Shauna have a daughter, probably named Jackie, and she hates them both, which makes sense, because she's a teenager, and also because Mr. Shauna sucks and Shauna is always telling lies and wiping someone else's blood off her face whenever Jackie Jr. walks into a room.
Misty is a serial killer. She has a whole serial killing basement and a graveyard in her backyard and is probably working on some kind of Frankenstein's monster situation. Like probably she has Jackie's head in a freezer to play a joke on Shauna as soon as she can find some suitable limbs to attach to it.
Lottie is a wellness influencer who still believes the wilderness wants the Yellowjackets to obey its whims. Mainly the whim of sacrificing humans. Lottie opens a wellness center that quickly becomes a cult compound called The Psycho Person's Purple People where she teaches yoga and drinks green juice and sharpens her knives while recording her podcast, "It Insists."
Van owns that video store, like I said, and she is pissed at Tai because Tai dumped her when they got home to pretend to be straight, and then married a woman anyway! I know this to be 100% factually accurate because my wife has told me this several times, angrily. But whatever, Van is still in love with Tai and smooches her on the mouth about it.
Tai is a state senator. She lives in a beautiful home. She sleepwalks around the neighborhood and eats dirt and is frankly still pissed she didn't get a chance to play (and win!!!!!) the 1996 High School Women's Soccer World Cup. As soon as her wife gets into a car wreck and goes into a coma, she calls up Van to rekindle their romance. At first Van is like, "Dude, no." But there's just something about surviving a plane crash, and being hunted like some turkeys by your soccer teammates in the frigid forests of Saskatoon that really bonds people together.
And finally, Melissa Hat still has that hat. She faked her own death, but she returns, hat in hand, and STABS VAN IN THE CHEST WITH HER OWN KNIFE! I don't know what happens after that because my wife has been crying about it and refuses to watch the last episode of the current season.
Yellowjackets has been renewed for a fourth season. Presumably in the teen timeline, it will take a whole season for a rescue crew to get through Lottie and Misty's defenses. In the adult timeline, I'm not sure why Mr. Shauna is still standing, due to both his betrayal and how quick these gals are to stab anything that moves. No doubt in season four, he's gonna end up like Niko in Killing Eve, with a steelhead mulching fork through his neck. Oh, well.
I don't watch it, but I love this. The only other thing I know about the show came from another substack article about how we know Misty is probably autistic (did you write that? Sorry for not remembering...I'm autistic and loved that article, too).
This is amazing. I'm obsessed. You're the best.